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Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

lbc.co.uk

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Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#41

Post by qaq »

renegade-otter wrote: post #35

This is not really suspicious. I regularly went foraging for shrooms in Ukraine with my gram gram, but I was not allowed to pick anything, of course. It requires expertise. In that part of the world, this is very common, and so are the cases of people poisoning themselves because they think they are good at it. If you can't relate - think of all the "gun people" who think they are experts on gun safety and then they…

That's more a question of proximity of events. Falling out of a window is not really suspicious. Falling out of a window while being on a crytical path for money laundering investigation into money laundering of Putin's inner circle ...

Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#43

Post by hunson_abadeer »

renegade-otter wrote: post #35

This is not really suspicious. I regularly went foraging for shrooms in Ukraine with my gram gram, but I was not allowed to pick anything, of course. It requires expertise. In that part of the world, this is very common, and so are the cases of people poisoning themselves because they think they are good at it. If you can't relate - think of all the "gun people" who think they are experts on gun safety and then they…

It is not common at all. You have maybe several people dying every year, which is in the "hit by lightning" territory. It's very well-publicized whenever it happens, which probably helps keep the numbers low. But this is a very unusual way to die.

Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#44

Post by api »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #36

Is Russia running out of windows or what?

Prigozhin fell from the sky in a plane so at least that one was still a fall. This isn’t even trying.

I’m just blown away by the gullible fools who see this dying totalitarian dystopia with statistics around birth and family life that are way worse than anything in the West as a beacon of resistance to decadence or something.

Of course I guess this isn’t new with Russia. Back in the Cold War it was naive elements of the left and now it’s naive elements of the right. They seem to excel at marketing themselves to the deeply disaffected. But there’s nothing there but a Potemkin village.

The Gulag Archipelago should be required reading.

Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#45

Post by serf »

renegade-otter wrote: post #35

This is not really suspicious. I regularly went foraging for shrooms in Ukraine with my gram gram, but I was not allowed to pick anything, of course. It requires expertise. In that part of the world, this is very common, and so are the cases of people poisoning themselves because they think they are good at it. If you can't relate - think of all the "gun people" who think they are experts on gun safety and then they…

>If you can't relate - think of all the "gun people" who think they are experts on gun safety and then they end up shooting themselves by accident.

eating a poisonous mushroom seems way easier. Less steps, less oversight, a calmer activity that doesn't provoke a crowd response.

but , in theory, that would also be exactly the alibi you'd want for a believable story: "gun nut shoots himself to death by accident" when you're being a sneaky vindictive government who wants to rid itself of someone.

It's kind of as easy as 'boating accident'; and whenever poison/russia is combined in a sentence it's pretty easy to make accusations given the storied history of political poisonings in that region.

Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#46

Post by toyg »

mcpackieh wrote: post #28
rebolek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 77 years, he certainly knew what he's picking up, it's not that hard to learn edible mushrooms, poisonous mushrooms and ignore the rest which may be edible but also not.

At 77 years old, he's long past his mental prime and could easily have made a mistake despite his experience.

I know a few OAPs and, if anything, they exude misplaced self-belief on all things. From there to carelessness, the step is short.

Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#49

Post by vmladenov »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #39
krastanov wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not remotely what the "common knowledge" about mushroom foraging is in Eastern Europe. There is a "funny" story in Bulgaria how the most famous mushroom foraging expert in Bulgaria a few decades ago died because he made a mistake when foraging. Plenty of edible mushrooms are just "twins" of poisonous mushrooms, using animal's knowledge to not eat them, without expending the metabolic cost to actually produce…

> There is a "funny" story in Bulgaria how the most famous mushroom foraging expert in Bulgaria a few decades ago died because he made a mistake when foraging. Do you have a citation or evidence for this? I ask because a while ago another commenter on HN said that the president of a mushroom society in Boston died from the same thing, and when I looked and searched I could find no mentions of this. Without additional…

> Do you have a citation or evidence for this?

If I've understood the previous commenter correctly, he's talking about a виц (comes from German witz, cognate of wit in English) which is a funny story joke that spreads by word of mouth. Here is the one in question:

https://kvo.bg/vicove/vicOTJK1I/vapros-koi-sa-poslednite-dum...

Roughly:

> Q: What were the last words of the mushroom forager?

> A: I hadn't tried that kind until now!

Re: Top Russian rocket scientist dies from ‘mushroom poisoning’

#50

Post by throwawaymaths »

qaq wrote: post #41
renegade-otter wrote: post #35

This is not really suspicious. I regularly went foraging for shrooms in Ukraine with my gram gram, but I was not allowed to pick anything, of course. It requires expertise. In that part of the world, this is very common, and so are the cases of people poisoning themselves because they think they are good at it. If you can't relate - think of all the "gun people" who think they are experts on gun safety and then they…

That's more a question of proximity of events. Falling out of a window is not really suspicious. Falling out of a window while being on a crytical path for money laundering investigation into money laundering of Putin's inner circle ...

Falling out a window is pretty much suspicious unless you're trying to demonstrate how safe the window is (they are, but not that safe)
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